Bill Cosby has lost his latest legal bid to fend off a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 1974, as the California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied the comedian’s petition to review the case.
The accuser’s attorney, Gloria Allred, said the decision cleared the way for litigation brought by Judy Huth, now in her 50s, to proceed, and that she intended to take Cosby’s sworn deposition within the next 30 days.
“We are looking forward to Mr. Cosby answering questions under oath at his deposition,” Allred said. “It’s a very big victory.”
There was no immediate response from Cosby or his lawyers, who have consistently denied allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against the 78-year-old performer.
Cosby’s attorneys however sought dismissal of Huth’s lawsuit on procedural grounds, arguing among other things that she lacked required certification from a mental health professional to support her claims. They also said in court papers that Huth sued Cosby only after she failed to extort money from him to buy her silence.
This decision comes weeks after a federal judge in Philadelphia unsealed excerpts of a deposition Cosby gave in a separate sexual assault case he settled with a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, for an undisclosed sum in 2006.
The excerpts included Cosby’s admission under oath that he had obtained Quaaludes, the brand name for a sedative widely used as a recreational drug in the 1970s, with the intent of giving the pills to young women in order to have sex with them. Click here if you missed it!
Culled from Reuters